Treacherously Departeth

When I talked with Tiffany on Tuesday she told me that she was scheduled to work both Friday and Saturday; which means from 2-11pm. On Friday at 2:30pm, I texted Tiffany's mom to find out when Nate gets back from school. She told me that he wouldn't be back till 3:30. I found out that this was a lie and that he was home all day because Tiffany decided not to send him to school that day. This is not too surprising because this has happened before where she would let him stay home for no reason that can be accepted as an excused absence. Nate also still has a cough, which he has had since he was sick in February because Tiffany refused to handle his sickness correctly. She didn't like how it should have been handled, and now Nate is suffering the consequences. After picking up the kids at 3:30pm we got in the van, which was on empty, and headed to Sarah Judd's house. We had to take a detour for gas. We trade cars every weekend. There hasn't been one weekend where

This weekend we met in the Walmart parking lot to trade cars and kids. Tiffany acted very different than all of our previous encounters since she left. Almost like there was hope of reconciliation. She even asked for a hug before we left. I was able to pick them up at 2pm because, for some reason, Nate didn't go to school on Friday. I asked him why he didn't have school and he said that it was because John didn't go to school. I wasn't to surprised by this because Tiffany frequently finds reasons not to send him to school or to pick him up early from school. Then we went back to the house to plan out the evening. The first thing we did was vote on what to do later. The options were to go to a free event called Pioneer Painter and Heritage Exhibit where the kids could look at Asian American art, go to a concert in the park, and go to Barnes & Noble for their story time. No one wanted to go to the concert in the park. Nathan wanted to do the story time but Lily a

This weekend I took the kids camping. The ward was going to have a camping trip but they canceled it. I decided to go camping anyway. I decided to camp out on the church property. If that didn't work, we would have camped out in our backyard. When I went to pick up the children, Tiffany was especially angsty. Most likely from a misunderstanding in our texting earlier that day. Nathan was balling on the floor - out of his element it turned out, from a fall off of the monkey bars earlier at school. He had a bump on his head. I checked him later and he was in good condition. I kept asking about his head the rest of the weekend and he did better and better each day. I asked them if their mom had spoiled the surprise of the weekend and it turned out she didn't. We still share calendars so I expected she would have. On the way home we stopped by the store to get s'mores and Nate guessed we were going camping. After getting everything loaded into the van and taking a detour,

On the first Wednesday of March, I was trying to figure out how to ask for the kids for the weekend. I didn't figure it out. On Thursday, Nate called me and we talked for a while. When we were done talking, Nate handed the phone back to Tiffany. I asked her if I could have the children for the weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Later she texted me and said, "You may have the kids from Friday evening until Sunday after church." When I went to pick up the kids, Tiffany told me to move out of the house and that she was going to move back in with the kids. I could tell she wasn't in the mood to negotiate so I told her when she was willing to discuss a solution we could both agree on we could talk. When Tiffany came to pick up the kids at the church I told her that we needed to talk. I asked what the situation was with Nate and school. He had now missed ten of the previous eleven days of school because Tiffany wouldn't take him to school. Tiffany asked if I de

Tiffany has requested that the church records of our children be moved with her records into her new ward congregation. I have denied this request already twice. I expect to continue to deny this request and hear are the reasons: I have been the spiritual leader in our house our whole marriage. I was the one encouraging us to read and discuss scriptures together while we were dating. After we were married, I continued to encourage us to read together. This started to slowly slip as I felt I was the only one who cared and didn't feel support from Tiffany. In recent years, it was pretty infrequent to study together. We used to go to the temple together very frequently before we moved to Georgia and that started to slip as well especially after we moved back to Texas. Specifically with the children, it was my initiative to start scripture study in our house with each child. I introduced Nate to the scriptures. I encourage him daily to read. I introduced Lily to the scriptures and

It appears to me that Tiffany is looking at going back to school. This makes me proud. I am very happy for her in this possible decision. She had talked about this in the past and it looks like she is finally doing it. It makes me sad that she felt that she couldn't do it while she was with me. She put up so many mental blocks because of our financial situation that she couldn't think outside the box. She kept using me, the money situation, and the business as excuses and blame that she wasn't willing to get past them; so much so, that it contributed to her needing to be hospitalized and medicated again for it. I'm glad that she is starting to move past that. It hurts that she couldn't allow herself to get past that while we were together. The road would have been easier if she had felt strong enough to grow unified but now she has chosen to grow apart and suffer. God uses suffering to inspire change. I believe that this will be for our good even if she never repen